Almost Classical

Richard Florida and his team are at it again, pointing to correlations and assuming causations.  High-School Dropouts and College Grads Are Moving to Very Different Places Cities like Washington and San Francisco are gaining the highly skilled but losing their less-educated workforce. While I suppose I could live anywhere, my career somewhat demands that I be near either cities or at least college towns. It isn't that I love or even like cities — I don't — but I like being employed. I don't like the noise, light, or other pollution of cities. Employment: it beats the alternative. Don't imagine cities are "attractive" to every migrating household. No, they simply are where we must go, and we must demand higher and higher salaries to afford those very cities, pushing the inequality gap wider and wider.  Want to live near the great university where I work? Expect to spend $700K or more on a little, old, problems-included, house. Invest another $100K...

We will always have articles accusing "libertarianism" of being everything from "fascist" (huh?) to "right-wring" to "juvenile." Those advocating for classical liberalism will be linked to racists, plutocrats, crony capitalists, and other perversions of limited government and negative rights. (I still hate the "negative" rights label, inherently a rhetorical device that insults various philosophical and political schools of thought.) When I read "Somalia is a libertarian paradise," I know the comment poster is either ignorant or intentionally lying. The basics of classical liberalism include: Rule of law, with an egalitarian legal system; Enforced contracts, protecting parties in transactions; Property rights beginning with the individual's ownership of self; Limited, effective, and reliable government. Now, for the sad reality that libertarians in the United States need to address: there are horrible people who...

Over on Politico, the divisions we know exist are examined yet again, this time in a new Pew poll. Pew poll: Polarization highest in recent history Two decades ago, “a lot of Democrats and Republicans said they didn’t really like what the other party was doing, but they didn’t downright worry about them and see them as a threat in the way that we’re seeing from a lot of people today,” said Michael Dimock, Pew’s vice president for research. On Facebook, my political friends are increasingly intolerant of other views. It is best to be neutral and ignore the political, or you risk having to choose sides when neither "side" is of much interest. The hatred, the name calling, the complete intolerance for "them" and a conviction that "they" are destroying this country is… destroying this country. As a classical liberal, I'm the definition of a radical moderate. Leave me alone, and I'll support your right to be left alone. Let me be a heath-consciou...